School Swaps Math Textbooks For iPads

MexiCali59 writes "Four of California's largest school districts will be trying something new on eighth-grade algebra students this year: giving them iPads instead of textbooks. The devices come pre-loaded with a digital version of the text, allowing students to view teaching videos, receive homework assistance and input assignment all without picking up a pen or paper. If the students with iPads turn out to do improve at a faster pace than their peers as expected, the program could soon spread throughout the Golden State."

Comments

Expensive

[Niris]

California is in the middle of a hiring freeze for the State, and a huge deficit. Where exactly are they getting the money for these iPad projects for these districts, let alone for the rest of the State if they decide to advance it?

Re:Expensive

[Anonymous Coward]

The logic of the bureaucracy is simply lunacy.

"Why are you blowing your full budget?"

"I do not want to have my budget cut for next year."

"But you didn't need it all this year."

"Yeah, but I want more next year."

That's what is happening in every government agency. If the idiots in charge were not all collectively doing this, then, for starters, there would be a rainy day fund when they really needed it. Agencies would actually be able to request bigger budgets when they really needed it, and, this is crazy, we'd actually have money to give them.

It should be criminal to blow a budget simply to try and get the same amount or more for the next budget cycle.

Re:Expensive

[copponex]

Private schools perform better because of selection bias. Parents who care about their child's education will go the extra mile, including spending extra money that doesn't always yield results. Stable families and finances are the determining factor in academic success, not the source of the funding for the school.

As someone who went to a private and a public high school, the only difference was that everyone at the private school never wanted for anything and most never had jobs other than school, while in public school a few miles away, they had night jobs just so they could make ends meet for their family. One major problem is that high schools in the US are treated like minimum security prisons for teenagers. Ending truancy laws once they turn 15 could solve the biggest problem of teachers being forced to control students who won't want to be there in the first place.

But really, your entire argument rests on the belief that anyone born poor or with learning disabilities does not deserve an education. That's a pretty low moral standard to aim for, and one you are strangely proud of.

Re:Expensive

[Darkness404]

Are you a salesman for Apple or something?

Note that these benefits are specific to devices like the iPad and not PCs. PCs are much more expensive, delicate and difficult to set up, maintain and use.

PCs are a hell of a lot easier to batch set up and load. AFAIK you can't just remotely load up 200 iPads, on the other hand its pretty damn easy to do that with PCs, just network boot them then push all the stuff in from the network.

And the problem isn't the paper, its the publishers. Without copyright you'd pay $2-3 for a textbook, not $50-100 for one. eBook editions of things really aren't all that cheap. Plus, there is a durability/resale question. A textbook is pretty easily readable in 10 years, especially a math book, things aren't going to fundamentally change. History books, science books? Yeah. Math, English, etc? No. But they used this for math and not the other subjects. Will an iPad even hold a charge in 10 years? Won't publishers simply screw schools out of books because with digital ones you can remove the older ones and make them pay for all new books whenever you want to upgrade, etc.

As far as I can tell, yes, this is throwing money at a problem to get in the headlines. Any return on investment is minimal because the iPad doesn't eliminate the need for many things, plus, iPads are fragile. Drop a book in the hall? No big deal. Drop an iPad and you are out ~$500, lose a book and you might be out ~$50-100, lose an iPad and you are out ~$500, someone steals a book? No huge deal. Someone steals an iPad? It lands in a pawn shop somewhere. Etc.

Re:Expensive

[Darkness404]

iPads are much more durable than laptops or netbooks. We've been evaluating them at my company. They are also much easier to set up.

Um, ok. So, battery dies in an iPad, what do you do? You can't just put in a new one, the batteries aren't user replaceable. Flash chip goes bad in an iPad, what do you do? You can't just take it out like you could a standard SSD and load up a standardized image on it. Screen breaks on an iPad, what do you do? Its certainly not as easy as changing a laptop's screen.

Also, you can't easily set up limited user accounts. Yeah, there are "parental controls" but that isn't going to be as safe as individual accounts.

You seem to think that there is no problem with a textbook being 10 years old. Well, a lot you (don't) know about textbooks. Not only do they need updating much more frequently then that, many schools don't have enough to give to students. They have to share them in class and cannot take them home. It's a huge problem and a huge expense.

Um, throughout high school I regularly used textbooks that were 10 years or more old for subjects that don't change Math, English, Keyboarding, etc. other than parts in the math textbook talking about a record store, it was just fine.

And so, you mean to say that somehow a school can't afford a $50 book, but can afford a $500 device + $50 book?

As for the $500 for a device. Well, that's as cheap or cheaper than all the texts a middle or high schooler uses and you didn't include all the other teaching content - interactive and all - that can be included. You can make parents share financial responsibility or assume all of it. We used to have to pay for lost or damaged textbooks. Why not iPads?

paper is not the main cost all the iPad is, is just the thing to run it. The book isn't free. You are still paying $50 a book on an iPad, the difference is that the book is electronic and not physical. If the paper was the main culprit I'd have my nook loaded up with all best sellers and would be saving a ton of money. You still have to buy the books. Yeah, there might be a slight discount, its not free though.

Like it or not, the publishers are all moving fast in this direction. Where you see that its because they can make more money I see it as they can provide more value and replace some more expensive assets.

What the fuck don't you get?

A) School pays $500 per student for an iPad

B) School pays $50 per student per book for the iPad

Is the digital model. The paper model is

A) School buys a paper book for $50 per student per book.

Yeah, e-books have some nice extras. Do they justify an extra $500 per student. Hell no.

Re:Expensive

[Americano]

You know, I generally consider myself "libertarian-leaning," but I think you're oversimplifying this to a frightening extent in your pursuit of an ideal.

Why should mechanics read Shakespeare? Because communication is important - probably even more so than the mechanical knowledge, the basic skills of every day interactions - talking, reading, writing - are critical skills for living. Reading other people's writing, especially those who are good communicators, educates you in how to communicate more effectively. Writing your own thoughts down, and practicing expressing your thoughts & opinions has value, no matter how much you, personally, hated English class back in high school

You see, nobody exists in a completely insular little vacuum. Mechanics don't wake up, pork their wife (also a mechanic), and send their kids off to mechanic school (mechanics-to-be!), then go to the garage, where they do mechanic stuff all day without talking to a single other soul. Then come home, eat some Mechanic Cuisine tv dinners, and go to bed, and maybe if they're lucky, pork their mechanic wife again.

A purely utilitarian view of people like you've expressed - where we're all specialized widgets who have "no need" for any learning outside their narrow specialized niche is engaging in overly reductionist thinking, and it's probably not a society that any of us would care to be a part of for long.

Re:Expensive

[jargon82]

It should be criminal to base next years funding on what was spent last year and little else. This needs to be fixed before any of these depts are going to address the other side of it (spending in order to have access in the future to similar funds). I've seen some downright insane wastes as a result of end of year surpluses.

There are cheaper alternatives

[GodfatherofSoul]

I've seen Android devices for a fraction of the price. When you consider how much text books are going for nowadays, the thought that a student or school can rent textbook access could be a major game changer. I had semesters in college where textbooks alone were $300+ and that was 15 years ago.

Doesn't replace books

[Sonny Yatsen]

Maybe I'm just a Luddite, but half the appeal of learning from a book (especially for a subject like math) was the ability to quickly flip between half a dozen pages to get to the right charts, reference sheets, and examples, and being able to scribble my illegible notes in the margins. I guess you could do it with an iPad with bookmarks and annotations, but I can't imagine it being anywhere near as natural or as easy as you can with a regular old textbook.

Re:Doesn't replace books

[AndrewNeo]

I don't know about in California, but when I was in 8th grade I would sure as hell have gotten in a lot of trouble for writing in my books.

Who modded this libertopian crap insightful?

[spazdor]

Governments breed waste, inefficiency and tyranny and can never lead to a net gain for society when compared to a private institution.

Private institutions breed greed, cartels and perverse incentives and can never lead to a decision-making process which would choose a net gain for society over a greater gain for itself.

Yes, both of these sentences are moronic oversimplifications.